MONZA, Italy, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Formula One leader Kimi Antonelli won his home Italian Grand Prix after a sensational race from 19th to first on Sunday in a massive blow for Mercedes teammate and closest championship rival George Russell.
The 20-year-old was the first Italian winner at Monza since Ludovico Scarfiotti for Ferrari in 1966, while the victory was the 50th by an Italian driver since the championship started in 1950.
Russell, who had taken the lead on lap two moments before Ferrari's Charles Leclerc crashed heavily and halted the race for half an hour, finished runner-up -- 3.857 seconds behind -- after being hunted down by his teammate on fresher tyres late in the race with Max Verstappen a distant third for Red Bull.
The Briton had hoped to slash Antonelli's 59-point lead after the Italian took engine penalties and lined up on the back row of the grid, with two other drivers starting in the pitlane, but instead ended up 66 adrift after 13 rounds and with Antonelli ever closer to becoming Formula One's youngest champion and Italy's first since Alberto Ascari in 1953.
"Oh my god, oh my god," screamed Antonelli over the team radio as he took the chequered flag as a winner for the seventh time this season and gave the crowd something to celebrate after Ferrari failed to make the podium.
"I could have never imagined to be here today. But we managed to pull it off and I'm really, really happy," he said later, after stepping out onto the podium to huge cheers.
INTO THE GRAVEL
The Italian, who had carved his way through the field and swapped the lead repeatedly with Russell before pitting during a virtual safety car period while his teammate stayed out, cut an 8.9-second gap to less than a second in 10 laps but then appeared to have wasted his efforts.
Trying to pass, Antonelli went into the gravel with four laps to go but still came back and took back the lead on lap 51 of 53 before pulling away.
Russell said he had lacked fresh enough tyres to fight back on a scorching afternoon that was declared a heat hazard.
"It was looking like a pretty strong race from us, and then I was just struggling with the tyres towards the end. Obviously, we did the whole race on that one hard tyre," he said.
"I thought we were both going to stay out. I was surprised to see him pitting. In the end it was a roll of the dice both ways."
McLaren's reigning champion Lando Norris took fourth from teammate Oscar Piastri on the last lap but is now 96 points off the lead.
Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton was sixth, after starting fourth and then dropping to 10th after being forced into the gravel by Leclerc when he tried to pass on the opening lap.
Pierre Gasly, the initial pole sitter for Renault-owned Alpine, was seventh with Racing Bulls' rookie Arvid Lindblad eighth and Alpine's Franco Colapinto ninth. Racing Bulls' stand-in Yuki Tsunoda completed the scoring positions in 10th.
LEAD CHANGED HANDS LIKE A YO-YO
Antonelli started on hard tyres and was already up to 12th when the red flags came out. Russell was on pole for the re-start, which allowed everyone to make a change of tyres with Antonelli switching to mediums, and Gasly lined up second. Colapinto, amazingly for the Argentine, was in fourth.
The first attempt to get away was aborted, with Tsunoda out of place, but when the race did get going Colapinto seized third before then overcooking things and tracking across the gravel and back down to 16th. Antonelli was sixth 10 laps in, then third after 13 laps and second after 16.
The Italian passed Russell for the first time on lap 18 but the lead was like a yo-yo -- Antonelli going in front and Russell passing him again on the same lap on a super-fast circuit where slipstreaming is a part of the strategy.
Antonelli and Verstappen, who had also led briefly, then seized the virtual safety car opportunity on lap 29 after Aston Martin's Lance Stroll stopped on track, the pair returning in sixth and seventh while Russell stayed on the hard tyres.
The next race is the Spanish Grand Prix next weekend at Madrid's new Madring circuit.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Christian Radnedge and Toby Davis)
